Patent Application
20070266692
Referring now to
Although the agricultural harvester is shown in the form of a combine 10 in
Referring to
The clamp 18 of the pickup tine 16 also preferably includes an upwardly extending projection 32, which fits into an opening (not shown) in the support shaft 14 to ensure that the pickup tine 16 does not rotate relative to the support shaft 14 when in use.
The pickup tine 16 also includes an elongate curved finger 34 which extends downwardly from the clamp 18 to produce the crop gathering and pickup effect for which the harvester reel is provided as the fingers are rotated with the reel, as shown by the arrows in
The pickup tine 16 may also include one or more wings 36, 38 which extend at an angle to the finger 34 and in a direction generally parallel to the support shaft 14. Wings 36, 38 also preferably include stiffeners 40, 42 which extend along the edges of the wings in order to strengthen the wings 36, 38. The upper stiffener 40 is formed in a generally concave shape to accommodate the curvature of the support shaft 14, and the lower stiffener 42 is generally cylindrical in shape. It will be appreciated, however, that the stiffeners 40 and 42 may assume different shapes without departing from the principles of the invention. The stiffener 42 at one side of the pickup tine 16 may also include a projection 44 which fits upwardly into a downwardly facing slot 45 in the other wing of the next adjacent pickup tine to interlock adjacent pickup tines together along the length of the support shaft 14.
The entire pickup tine 16 including its clamp 18, finger 34 and wings 36, 38 may be formed in one-piece integral form by molding from a suitable material, such as for example, nylon, acetal or homopolyproplylene.
The pickup tine 16 thus far described is conventional and known in the art. The difficulty with such pickup tines is that they are fixed in position along the support shaft and are difficult to reposition. First, the wings 36, 38 abut one another, preventing the tines from being moved inwardly into a closer spacing without completely removing the tines 16 and replacing them with tines 16 having shorter wings. This process of removal is slow and time consuming due to the necessity of unscrewing each of the tines from the supports and then screwing on a replacement tine in its place. This re-spacing process is both time consuming and labor intensive and can result in considerable downtime for the combine.
According to an aspect of the present invention, a pickup tine 16 which is to be converted and/or has broken its finger 34 may be rapidly and easily modified using a conversion tine 46 without removing the pickup tine from the support shaft. The phrase “conversion tine”, as used herein, is a descriptive phrase of convenience intended to designate a primary function of conversion tine 46; namely, to convert a pickup tine 16 to a wider lateral profile to assist in moving crop material to and over the cutterbar. However, it is to be understood that conversion tine 46 can also be used to repair a pickup tine 16 with a broken finger 34.
Referring to
A pair of fasteners with a snap fit arrangement including split rings 54 straddle the opening 52 and frictionally engage the stiffener 42 by snap fit when the body 48 has been finally positioned on the pickup tine 16 to fasten the body 48 to the pickup tine 16. Other types of fastener arrangements are also possible. Additionally, although original finger 34 and hollow body 48 are disclosed as tapering to a smaller cross sectional dimension toward their distal ends, it will be appreciated that they may be of unchanging, flaring or increasing cross sectional dimension over their length without departing from the present invention. Whatever their cross sectional shape or dimension over their length, it is generally preferred that the shape of the original tine is substantially replicated by the body 48 to the extent possible.
A pair of prongs 56, at least 2 in number, extend laterally to the side of hollow body 48. Prongs 56 may also extend to a point up to but not beyond adjacent body 48 when assembled to the reel, and extend downward to approximately the length of body 48. Prongs 56 have respective distal ends which lie generally along a common line 57 passing through the distal end of hollow body 48, but could possibly be offset or staggered if desired. Prongs 56 are shown as being equidistantly spaced on either side of hollow tine 48, but could even be spaced at different distances from hollow tine 48, depending upon the application. In the embodiment shown in
If conversion tine 46 is ever broken, all that need be done is to disengage it from the pickup tine 16 by pulling downward on conversion tine 46, which applies pressure to unsnap and remove the split rings 54 from the stiffeners 42, and replace the broken conversion tine 46 with a new unbroken conversion tine 46 by sliding it upward on finger 34 of pickup tine 16 until split rings 54 are flexed outward and snap back into place.
Conversion tine 46 provides more complete lateral coverage of the reel's span along the length of a cutter bar by partially or completely filling the gaps between the existing or original fingers. This helps in two conditions. 1) When material builds up on top of the cutter bar due to taking in large amounts of crop and or soil, the stronger conversion tine 46 can pierce the material and bring it into the machine rather than flexing or breaking. Conversion tine 46 contacts a larger portion of the material which also assists in this regard. 2) When harvesting short crops, conversion tine 46 contacts more of the crop at a point closer to the plant base. This allows the reel to sweep the material back to the cutter bar.
Having described the preferred embodiment, it will become apparent that various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60801322 | May 2006 | US |
